Alfred Austin

[P]eople who canalise their lives and prearrange their enjoyments lose much of the enchantment which attends the guiding beneficence of chance.

It is always delightful to have one's feelings expressed by some one else in language of enthusiasm one might oneself be afraid to employ.

Men preach Philosophy, women practise it.

One must be intoxicated by scenery, in order to appreciate it. Tranquil survey is not enough, and scrutinising curiosity is fatal.

[A]mbition should be spoken of as not the last, but the first infirmity of noble minds, of which they gradually purge themselves as they grow more mature.

A writer cannot take his occupation too seriously. He cannot take himself too lightly.

If you are not something of a philosopher,—and by philosophy I understand a serene temper, and the maintaining of an equable mind under the sharpest disappointments,—I do not advise you to cultivate, or at any rate to grow enamoured of, a …

Whatever else he may do, a critic reveals and criticises himself.

[H]e who saves an ancient tree does better even than he who plants a new one.

[E]xclusiveness in a garden is a mistake as great as it is in society.

A garden that one makes oneself becomes associated with one's personal history and that of one's friends, interwoven with one's tastes, preferences, and character, and constitutes a sort of unwritten, but withal manifest autobiography. …

No one can rightly call his garden his own unless he himself made it.

Once learn how Nature gardens for herself, and you will be able to spare yourself a good deal of trouble.

[T]here is no gardening without humility, an assiduous willingness to learn, and a cheerful readiness to admit that you were mistaken. Nature is continually sending even its oldest scholars to the bottom of the class for some egregious …

Imagination should A reconciler, not a rebel, be, To teach the heart of man to apprehend Nature's vicissitudes, and bear his own, With sympathetic fancy.

When the foal and broodmare hinny, And in every cut-down spinney Ladysmocks grow mauve and mauver, Then the winter days are over

Why should you, Because the world is foolish, not be wise?

There is no office in this needful world But dignifies the doer if done well.

The Devil is an echo Of search unsatisfied.

Towns can be trusted to corrupt themselves.

'Tis a world Where all is bought, and nothing's worth the price.

Of all our feigned affections, there is none So hollow, selfish, and injurious, As what we christen Patriotism.

He is dead already who doth not feel Life is worth living still.

So long as Faith with Freedom reigns And loyal Hope survives, And gracious Charity remains To leaven lowly lives; While there is one untrodden tract For Intellect or Will,